Yesterday at 2:14 p.m. EDT, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on the Prenatal Non-discrimination Act (PRENDA) of 2012, which would impose "criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly or knowingly attempts to... perform an abortion knowing that the abortion is sought based on the sex, gender, color or race of the child, or the race of a parent," according to congressional watchdog site GovTrack.us. The bill well-surpassed a simple majority (246-168 with 17 abstentions) but failed to pass on to the Senate as it was brought up for passage under a suspension of the rules, which requires a 2/3rds vote (at least 290 votes).

Yet news of the vote was not delivered on either the May 31 broadcast network newscasts -- ABC's World News, CBS's Evening News and NBC's Nightly News -- nor on the June 1 morning news programs -- ABC's Good Morning America, CBS's This Morning and NBC's Today.

For her part, Paula Faris, anchor of ABC's World News Now (broadcast at 3 a.m. EDT) did inform her few viewers of the vote, dismissing it as "a bit of election-year political theater." She did, however, note that some countries with more liberal abortion laws than the United States actually have bans on sex-selection abortions:

This is a law, gendercide, is a law that is being practiced in Canada, in Finland, in Norway, in Sweden, in Switzerland, countries that are very, very pro-abortion, pro-abortion rights, and they needed a 2/3rds majority though to get this one passed.

What's more, Faris added:

A little stat for you. They say that the practice of killing baby girls, or terminating pregnancies solely because the fetus is female is estimated to have produced a gender imbalance of more than 100 million girls around the world.

"Horrifying story, that part of it, anyway," co-anchor John Muller replied.

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